Misleading title. First sentence of the linked article:
> The street in the Romanian capital Bucharest where the Belarusian embassy is located could be renamed in honour of dissident journalist Roman Protasevich as a gesture of solidarity after his dramatic arrest, a district mayor has said.
I'm the OP. The title was that "Bucharest mayor changes Belarus embassy's street name to Protasevich Street". Mayor of the 1st district is sending the proposal this morning to the General Mayor at the city hall, the talks are official and they are undergoing. The street name hasn't been changed yet.
Also I've seen attempts to clarify actors involved, but occasionally making it muddier. e.g. this one removes the fact that the response was from a Wireguard developer: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25759477
Or once or twice, just wrong.
I'm not saying this is malicious, but the criteria for getting titles changed is definitely more loose than "title is false/misleading".
I live in a city where city council politicians regularly proposes to change the name of “Israel square” to “Palestine square”. Fairly idiotic in my opinion.
Because that particular conflict dates back over a thousand years, both sides have legitimate grievances, and the politics and consequential conflict are incredibly complex despite what propagandists on either side would have you believe. Such a reductionist statement by some local council would be counterproductive.
Let's discuss naming the street with the Chinese embassy "Falun Gong street" and the one with the American embassy "Julian Assange street" instead focusing on keeping our streets clean of rubbish and our schools well run.
It is idiotic because local politicians should not do foreign policy, and if they try they likely will show themselves as incompetent fools.
It is not so much what they spend their time on, it is more how they misdirect and manipulate public opinion. Like: sure I am an incompetent and corrupt mayor but let’s talk about the Israel / Palestine - isn’t it just horrible how the Israelis are bombing children?
I don’t know anything about this particular politician, but if someone incompetent or corrupt does something good like highlighting atrocities committed by Israel against Palestine that’s still a positive, even if it’s just an attempt to get good PR (if they’re so awful it might not even help them that much)
What wouldn’t be idiotic is for countries to sanction Israel for not trying to resolve the conflict. Like, for starting a war whenever the ruling party needs to get a bit more of those nationalistic votes.
While that's a sensible gesture, Clotilde Armand should focus on the garbage and rats on the streets of her sector (yes, really), rather than these moves that are usually made at "higher courts"(US,UK,France usually).
I hate to switch the subject but yes, it's a distraction from the fact that the mayor elections have very big holes and there's almost proof of corruption and fraud during the counting of votes (after which she became mayor).
To stay on topic: I doubt Minsk really cares about this.Lukashenko is neither pro-west nor pro-russia really, but that doesn't mean he doesn't want to stay in power by all means necessary.
Lithuania has done the same in Vilnius. Square in front of RU embassy got renamed to Boris Nemtsov square after his murder in Moscow. Not sure if it had any direct effect, though happy that a memory of such aggressions gets persisted.
Nothing says “Let’s try to resolve the issues between our states” like naming a street after someone who’s considered a terrorist by your neighbor. Has no practical value, no historical significance for your city. Just to piss someone off. This is a kindergarten-level politics.
All Lithuanian liberty activists killed by soviets during occupation were labeled as "terrorists" by USSR. Should LT treat them as terrorists because USSR labeled them so?
By the way there is at least one statue of Lithuanian liberty fighting "terrorist" in Chicago.
You should check out russian diplomats like Mariya Zaharova or Sergey Lavrov, if you want to get some "kindergarten-level" diplomacy. They do really not care about public image. This act is polite compared to what they say and pull off.
There's nothing done yet, but the idea is absolutely brilliant. Punishing autocrats on their ego instead of their people sounds like a much better approach. (given that economic sanctions usually fail to overthrow the regimes they are intended to punish)
> There's nothing done yet, but the idea is absolutely brilliant.
It's pointless when it is not backed by real sanctions. It does nothing to punish brazen actions of autocrats while giving them fuel for propaganda.
> Punishing autocrats on their ego instead of their people sounds like a much better approach.
How about real sanctions on autocrats, their cronies, families and businesses? Sanction oligarchs, sanction businesses that are main source of income for autocrats etc. If you want to help ordinary people - simplify immigration.
> Given that economic sanctions usually fail to overthrow the regimes they are intended to punish
Maybe not, but they cripple country development and leave autocrats with less resources for a future actions.
> How about real sanctions on autocrats, their cronies, families and businesses? Sanction oligarchs, sanction businesses that are main source of income for autocrats etc.
Sure, but these have a limited reach and they are usually being done very early in the sanction process. But once the targets have no more estate in the Western world, there is not much you can do.
> Maybe not, but they cripple country development and leave autocrats with less resources for a future actions.
But that's a really limited success at the cost of hundreds of lives, which makes it morally very difficult to justify.
It's not pointless. It's a sign of disapproval. Just like not allowing Russia sportsmen to compete in Japan olympics under Russian flag. There is nothing intrinsically untouchable about official flags. It's just a symbol.
RT's current approach seems to be to focus on Protasevich's alleged role as a propagandist for the neo nazi azov brigades in donbass and, of course, the whole Snowden/Morales affair.
Western news media outlets, by contrast, seem to be lionizing the journalist's role in the Belarus protests, but at some point I imagine they will have address the above two points. Silence is too awkward.
It is interesting to diff the propaganda from both sides here, especially since domestic propaganda value appears to have been a key component of why Lukashenko chose to do this.
Do you get assigned the role of dissident at birth? Or do we rather choose it based on living in places with particular regimes? A more valid question would be: where would you rather live if you were glorifying Azov brigades? The answer would apparently be: the West. And you know where Snowden chose to live and why. So it appears that people more aligned with my (and generally accepted) values tend to prefer Russia and its allies, with a good reason.
He's dissident because he breached the laws and revealed secret information. Russia has similar laws and he would be convicted in Russia for similar acts. And, I guess, in any other country.
A dissident in the US and its buddies, specifically. Iceland is still "the west" and was where Snowden said he'd have liked to move, but they'd have needed to offer him asylum and for that he'd have been required to apply in person and he was just not in the right place at the right time for that to happen (since he had concerns at the time that it would have been easier for the US to lean on Iceland than Hong Kong).
> So it appears that people more aligned with my (and generally accepted) values tend to prefer Russia and its allies
This is objectively false, since there are way more refugees chosing to go to Russia and its allies (Snowden and who else?) than the other way round (thousands every year).
> And you know where Snowden chose to live and why.
Nitpick: Snowden chose to live in South America actually (Bolivia or Equador) he was just in transit in Moscow but he was just never given the right to onboard the plane again after the US canceled his passport.
If you're considered an enemy of the state you're not safe on any side. Some countries terrorize their own people, others terrorize someone else's people. As I said in the past, after moving between democracy and dictatorship several times in my life I can say that it mainly boils down to how well your interests align with the interests of the one(s) in power. The main difference is that if your interests don't align you'll have a much harder life in a dictatorship than in a democracy.
But don't think for a second that the US won't force a diplomat's plane to land even outside their jurisdiction just because they believe an enemy of the state is on it. It's all about interests.
> But don't think for a second that the US won't force a diplomat's plane to land even outside their jurisdiction just because they believe an enemy of the state is on it. It's all about interests.
They already did that. It's funny that this is considered ok.
This is precisely why all the international responses to the current incident focus on using the military interception rather than the principle of forcing a plane to land just to get your hands on one individual.
EU countries like Spain and Italy denied access to their airspace to a diplomatic flight in what was essentially equally immoral stunt as the one Belarus pulled. Only with the added "bonus" of showing that being a diplomat means nothing. Now the same countries have to walk the fine line of accusing the enemy while not incriminating the frenemy.
> But don't think for a second that the US won't force a diplomat's plane to land even outside their jurisdiction just because they believe an enemy of the state is on it. It's all about interests.
German Tagesschau has published an interview with an aviation lawyer about the difference between the current incident and the Morales thingy. TLDR: difference between a scheduled flight (protected by international treaty) and diplomatic flights, which need separate approval of the countries they're flying over. [0]
"Article 5: The aircraft of states, other than scheduled international air services, have the right to make flights across state's territories and to make stops without obtaining prior permission. *However, the state may require the aircraft to make a landing.*"
He seems to be arguing that this clause was broken in spirit or something. I can't quite make out the finer details though, but it's not exactly a slam dunk violation - the treaty does say they may require the aircraft to make a landing and they did.
The merits or demerits of the individual should be irrelevant. Belarus seized a European civilian plane. I believe this is unprecedented. (Blowing them out of the sky aside.)
If this were an American plane, I would fully consider it an act of war and make a lot of noise to that extent. If it were an American citizen, it would be worth—even if solely to draw a line—a tactical incursion to attempt exfiltration. But it’s not. We don’t have Nordstream or Orban or all the other capitulations Brussels (and Berlin) have made that create a geopolitical vulnerability with an actor willing to exploit them. The situation is thus properly complicated.
The only mitigating factor to Minks’s credit is Protasevich having never secured EU citizenship.
Hate the player, not the game. The EU counties are highly likely(see, I adopted the Euro-Atlantic speak here) to be involved in trying to overthrow Lukashenko. Like him or not, but he acts in his own right.
Belarus are arguing that grounding a head of state is worse. The West is saying that grounding a civilian plane and escorting with fighter jets is worse.
I think people who are fully one one side of this are fully convinced by one of those. I don't think it's swaying people on the fence, however.
The individual does matter. It doesn't look great to start naming streets after arrested neo-nazis. If that story has legs (unclear if it does) this will really not endear Belarussians to the West and will play directly into Putin's narrative, which is that we enthusiastically support neonazis who fight Russia.
> RT's current approach seems to be to focus on Protasevich's alleged role as a propagandist for the neo nazi azov brigades in donbass and, of course, the whole Snowden/Morales affair.
They're deflecting because Lukashenko's official narrative (the bomb story) is too absurd even for them to peddle. They can't really say that the plane wasn't hijacked so instead they're falling back to "well he had it coming". This is definitely a new low for the Russia-Western relations, they normally bother with at least some plausible deniability.
It's a country with _very_ close relationships to Russia. Up to the point where Russian riot police was participating in suppressing protests in Belarus. If it was not for Russian support Lukashenko would probably have been overthrown in 2020.
"The Ryanair flight from Greece to Lithuania was compelled to land in Minsk on Sunday while traveling through Belarusian airspace, on the basis of what appears to be a fraudulent claim that a bomb might be on board."
I had a look at the RT's web site (in English) when the hijacking happened. I found them being quite objective.
I did not analyze everything but they mentioned the reactions of western countries, the fact that Protasevich was arrested etc.
When extensively travelling in the ME 12 years ago, I often watched Al-Jazeera (in English) and I di not find anything outrageous either.
So either I did not read closely, or there is some subliminal text that I did not notice, or I was not interested enough to be the right target (just for the record, I think that the Belorussian govt is completely fucked up and we (France) should do whatever we can to kick them in the ass, more than just closing the airspace (and yes, I do not know what)).
It literally is some gal trolling on Facebook. Even if it were Merkel and Sarkozy tweeting, it is literally just tweeting. They could be actually implementing the actions they want, but instead they chose to just pretend to be doing something.
This proposal (which I find hilarious) is from local politicians in Bucharest and not from the EU.
There are already _a lot_ of economic sanctions aimed at Belarus and each time new ones are imposed, it'll be successively harder to do more the next time. There's only so much that can be done -- The EU has already pretty much delivered Belarus into the hands of Russia and the EU isn't going to try direct intervention. Nobody wants a confrontation with Russia or a repeat of the Ukraine situation.
The EU is kind of stuck. Most of the options at its disposal would likely be made to drive resentment by Belarussians towards the EU and push them into Putin's arms.
This is in direct opposition to the EU's strategic goals - it wants Belarussians have a favorable view of the EU and an unfavorable view of Russia. They've actually been doing fairly well at that so far.
On the other hand, if they do nothing they look weak.
RT and domestic Belarussian propaganda outlets are all geared up to tell Belarussians that they won't be able to get their medicine because the EU doesn't like that we used the same unconventional methods they used to get Snowden to arrest a domestic neo nazi insurgent (that being the line they're going with now) oh and by the way "they named a street after their hero".
I don't think there are many good options here. Indeed, doing nothing, galling as it might be, might be the lesser evil.
This is something of a tradition [1] - for example, the British Embassy in Tehran has its street name changed to Bobby Sands Avenue in the 1980s; Glasgow renamed a street adjoining the South African consulate to Nelson Mandela Place during apartheid; in 2018 Washington DC renamed the street housing the Russian Embassy as Boris Nemtsov Street; and so on.
While this might not accomplish much in real terms, I do find it hilarious.
I just heard an interview with a journalist, Jolyon Naegele, a Western correspondent in Czechoslovakia in the 80s (who worked for Radio Free Europe). He talked about how Czechoslovak secret services bothered him (often in a very crude, stupid ways) and also how they, in some sense, were afraid of him, since they assumed that he is a foreign agent. The assumption came from the fact that all the Czechoslovak foreign correspondents in the West actually _were_ agents of secret services.
My point is, you cannot generalize the systemic features of Western liberal democracies to authoritarian countries.
So I would be surprised if this is not true for diplomats as well. Most of them, if not all, are probably operatives of Belarusian secret services, and they probably have mostly conservative-authoritarian values.
Even if they aren't, they've been vetted very carefully by the secret service. Embassies are among the last places where liberal-leaning individuals would be allowed by the regime to get.
Typically embassy staff are well vetted for being loyal to their governments. Also, some embassy staff are straight up legal spies, tasked with carrying out clandestine work for their governments. These are not people who you would recruit if you weren't absolutely sure of their allegiances and beliefs.
I did for a while. One embassy was for a minor, but controversial country, another was for a minor (but regionally significant) neighbor. Had it not been for the flags and the CD cars, I wouldn't even have known these were embassies. They really don't cause much of a stir usually.
In DC they are just part of the city. I lived across the street from the Tunisian embassy for a while. The bigger ones are mostly back in a part of NW that I don’t think has too many residents.
These name changes may have some superficial "feel-good reinforcement" domestic value on social media, but they're never an avenue for change.
At best, they are a distraction. At worst, they reinforce the more juvenile members of each nation's diplomatic core that encourage non-constructive tit-for-tat "optics" politics.
Well, they force all data stores that refer to the embassy as well as every person visiting it, and all correspondence to it to mention something they'd rather bury. But you might be right.
Streets can have multiple names in some cities, and not always for political axe-grinding. I believe that the 1600 block of Crittenden St. NW is also Rev. Jerry Moore Plaza, after the pastor of the 19th St. Baptist Church when in relocated from downtown to the block bounded by the street/plaza on the north. And once in lower Manhattan I saw a "way" apparently named for a cousin of mine (with not an uncommon name)--but it had a companion original name.
I do imagine that the USPS will deliver to the 1600 block of either Crittenden St. or Rev. Jerry Moore Plaza, or to 800 block of either 16th St. NW or Black Lives Matter Plaza.
I'm wondering about the same, and I don't understand why you're getting downvoted.
At the very beginning of HN guidelines we read:
"Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. [...] If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic."
It sounds pretty much like a story that could make it to TV news, and the phenomenon itself is hardly new (a number of precedents has already been pointed out in other comments).
> I'm wondering about the same, and I don't understand why you're getting downvoted.
Because people complaining about this is tedious and a regular feature, and it only causes noise. If you don't like an article, move on. If you think it's off topic and shouldn't be there at all, flag.
For my part, I find it interesting not because of this specific incident, but because of the comments it has sparked showing how naming places is regularly being used as a low-key passive-aggressive protest by local governments.
To me that's an interesting hack around the otherwise limited powers of local government.
LOL. Lukashenka and Putin will be very upset and will care so much about that. Hijacking Protasevich was a demonstration of power, a showtime for Russian and Bialorusian intelligence competence and ability to operate abroad.
This was a Polish plane flying from one EU country to another EU country with EU citizens on-board that was clearly hijacked. Mig-29 was sent to make sure this will happen.
What EU did? Blocked Belorussian planes for one day (looking on Flight Radar, blockade is gone now)? Changing street name? What else, twits, likes and crayons?
This is exactly what Putin wants - he wants to show that EU, NATO are not able to protect their interest in Central Europe, more, that they don't even care about this. Russia do this using force - Crimea invasion and catching Protasevich or using economy and influence - German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder was bribed by Russians to start building Nord Stream, then Nord Stream 2 followed.
I don't know if the grandparent commenter is correct, but they quite clearly meant Belarussian flights over EU airspace, not the other way round (EU flights over Belarus, which is what you seem to be referring to).
Belavia themselves[1] say flights to Poland, Italy, Netherlands, Germany, Austria, Belgium, Spain, Finland, Czechia, Latvia, Sweden, Ukraine, United Kingdom, France and Lithuania are cancelled.
That leaves Hungary, Cyprus and Estonia. There are news articles for all three saying bans are supported or in progress — different countries have different legal processes for doing this, and it can take a few more days.
I was very curious about the Azerbaijan Airlines routing (the countries around there don't get along so their flight paths tend to reflect that - see flights coming/going from Armenia too)
Renaming a street to make a political statement obviously doesn't prevent the municipality from doing something meaningful and productive for the inhabitants of the city.
We don't live in a turn based strategy and the mayor did not spend her action. She doesn't have to wait for the next turn to do something else.
This is a fallacy. People can make more than one decision in a year. Particularly large cities' councils, which are tasked with running amazingly complex administrative and economic systems.
So unless there are indications that other decisions were delayed or scrapped because they want to change the street name, this is irrelevant.
You are assuming that had the mayor skipped this proposal (which sounds like very little work to me), she would have done something else for thew city instead.
Real world doesn't work like that. If you are familiar with Bucharest municipal politics, by all means criticise that they are not doing a good enough job, or that they handled some things wrong.
But without context it's nonsensical to attack someone the way you do.
Perhaps the mayor is doing 10x better job than her predecessor and she proposed this name change in addition to that.
> Perhaps the mayor is doing 10x better job than her predecessor and she proposed this name change in addition to that.
Technically, the argument is that they are doing less work than their hypothetical counterpart who is identical in all respects, but did not spend time on making the name change proposal.
Clearly this is almost nonfalsifiable, so a difficult argument to take seriously.
It's not a fallacy, unless you take it out of context. The context was as follows: the grand-grandparent comment pointed out that this change achieves nothing.
The grandparent comment didn't challenge it, but asked rhetorically what [else] a mayor could do.
This response implies that something had to be done (by the mayor) by definition, whether useful or not. And that's what's fallacious to me.
Municipal entities aren't really actors in international politics, and when they try playing such a role, the results tend to be dubious. That's my opinion at least.
As for your comment - that "people can make more than one decision in a year" - it, in turn, feels like a strawman argument to me, because noone said that they can't. There is still some limit, though (obviously larger than 1, but nevertheless finite), and renaming a street always comes at a substantial cost - both for the city and private entities. Cost associated with the need for changing street name signs, changing documents etc. Maybe that cost is worth paying, but an ad absurdum line of argument isn't something that could convince me of it.
> It's not a fallacy, unless you take it out of context. The context was as follows: the grand-grandparent comment pointed out that this change achieves nothing.
This is demonstrably false. The change sends a message, which is certain to be heard. It also signals a position to the local population. You can argue it is not much, but it is not nothing. I would say the effect seems proportional to the amount of time needed to take such a decision.
The actual context was that the mayor should do something useful instead of doing this, which is fallacious as she can do both.
> This response implies that something had to be done (by the mayor) by definition, whether useful or not. And that's what's fallacious to me.
Well yes, it would be fallacious. That's why I did not make that point, and instead referred only to this specific decision. Note that I did not even say that it was a good decision, just that the premise that doing it somehow prevented them from doing something else was flawed.
> Municipal entities aren't really actors in international politics, and when they try playing such a role, the results tend to be dubious. That's my opinion at least.
Municipal entities do not exist in a vacuum. They are shaped by and react to national and international politics. Particularly capitals with embassies and stuff. In a context of increased nationalism and cultural tensions, these things are bound to happen, even though as you say it's not necessarily effective or useful. Changing street names for some political reason really isn't new or remarkable.
> As for your comment - that "people can make more than one decision in a year" - it, in turn, feels like a strawman argument to me, because noone said that they can't.
You should read the thread. Plenty of people are saying just that, and your comment implied it heavily in the context of the discussion.
You seem to want to minimise the consequences and emphasise the costs of the decision. In reality, it does not do much, and does not cost much either.
The thing is that he never fought. By the time he arrived to the battalion there were no deployments to the frontline anymore. He was in training, took a few photos and left. Biletsky's words differ depending on when you ask him and soldiers that trained with him say that he never was in action.
While azov is definitely is not a great bunch, in 2014 it was one of the only groups, alongside with donbas battalion that was accepting volunteers and this was the main attraction. A lot of belarusians and ukranians got there, fought and left and they realized what azov is really about.
And later in Belarus he worked against authoritarian fascist regime and against exactly what azovs ideology now represents. In a country where you are actively pursued by cops for critiquing people in power and cops have no responsibility and any kind of limitations on use of force, being a journalist that even somewhat challenges the system takes balls and dedication.
Most of my family got affected by the regime at some point before leaving the country, witnessed massacre in 2011, gov-t staged terrorist acts. And knowing how Belarus needs people like Protasevich, Putilo, Zavadski, Byabenin, Cherkasova i am willfully dismissing his misdoings in favour of his later achievements.
I know that people love to let their entire opinion be based on a single article, but let the bigger picture in.
edit: Anarchists in Belarus are actively persecuted by kgb over the last 20 years. They are seen as enemies of the state and are constantly watched. Police brutality, election fraud, are themes that are very taboo in state media, and journalists that write about these things are often arrested because of treir work.
I was interested in his earlier pieces: it’s been stated that Protasevich joined Azov as a journalist, not a neo-nazi combatant. Did he write anything about his experience in Azov?
While this is Protasevich's photo. Age in the article does not line up he was 19 at the moment of article publication, Protasevich joined Pahonya division at a later date, not when the division was just formed.
The article does not say he's 22; it quotes "Kim" reporting his age as 22. While Protasevich was 20 at the publication time, he could have concealed his age, e.g. to prevent identification.
I don't seem to get what you're saying. Do you suggest svaboda.org used a photo from the future when it published that article on September 18, 2015? If you're not saying that, I think we can agree he was there on that date or before.
Nope, i am saying just like they gave away fake age for the reporter, they could've used just some random photo from backlog of a nondescript soldier with azov patch to put into article.
I am not arguing that was not there. I am just arguing that the article is not really a proof of him being a combatant.
Let's leave "Kim" aside. Is the picture of a person with Protasevich's face carrying a weapon and magazines a sufficient proof of Protasevich being a combatant, in your opinion?
This proves that he took part in training. Posing with a weapon on a shooting range, does not define him as a combatant.
Combat medics, for example, that are by Geneva convention are non-combatants are still trained to use rifles and carry at least a pistol, in most militaries, for personal protection during active service.
This argument is threading thin on the edge of "plausible deniability" but the problem is that no one (as of yet) is claiming he was there as a "medic". The claim being raised is that he's been there as a "journalist". Surely journalists don't have to take part in the military training of the combatants they are covering as a part of their job?
The issue with this is, in the court of public opinion, once it's proven that your "alibi" doesn't hold water, you aren't allowed to come with an alternative "alibi", but rather perceived as a liar; otherwise you would tell the truth from the beginning.
East. The "Тактика" и "Военная подготовка" part. This is an example of russian uni that trains military journalists specifically, still during my time in my military dept (not military uni, just a dept) in uni "Военная подготовка" went above and beyond shooting on a range and ruck marches.
https://voronezh.postupi.online/vuz/vgu/programma/10008/
European countries mostly pick fresh recruits after basic, and do additional training, then they assigned a role.
The bigger problem here is that the West is no longer capable of committing to sacrifices in order to squeeze despots like Luka and geopolitical hooligans like Putin, because they are sitting on resources. God forbid local business interests are hurt.
Some of it is just straight up bribery. Selfishness is taking over basic patriotism. Not the toxic kind, I mean, basic, like knowing which team you are on, at least.
And the more minor part of it is, of course, the terminal condition of not wanting to "disturb the peace". Fine, then, they will do it FOR you, and they will control the situation.
Even the entry you cite talks about Assange deliberately leaking false info about Snowden onboard. Either way, this is rather poor whataboutism. Landing a diplomatic plane is not threatening to shoot down a loaded civilian jet in order to arrest and most likely now murder a political opponent.
Wow, little bit easier. Shoot down the plane? Murder a political opponent? I won't really comment that nonsense.
As for Evo Moralez incident, the head of the State and its stuff has diplomatic immunity. Even if the plane is packed with snowdens and assanges you can NOT touch it.
Naming streets after people who are still alive (not to mention under 30) is nonsensical in principle.
Make no mistake - I do hope that Protasevich gets released, and I have no sympathy for the regime whatsoever... but there's absolutely no telling what his further life trajectory would be like, and the street name would be there to stay. (It's obviously not guaranteed "forever"; but that's usually the intention, the principle. Street names are not meant for temporary tributes or announcements)
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[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 255 ms ] thread> The street in the Romanian capital Bucharest where the Belarusian embassy is located could be renamed in honour of dissident journalist Roman Protasevich as a gesture of solidarity after his dramatic arrest, a district mayor has said.
HN is notorious for changing the title so many times and frequently that its hard to know whether the title changed since the post was made.
That's mostly because people regularly submit with misleading/false titles.
e.g. this topic they changed "Deno 1.10" to "Deno 1.1" in the title: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27127316
Which are not the same things.
Also I've seen attempts to clarify actors involved, but occasionally making it muddier. e.g. this one removes the fact that the response was from a Wireguard developer: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25759477
Or once or twice, just wrong.
I'm not saying this is malicious, but the criteria for getting titles changed is definitely more loose than "title is false/misleading".
It is idiotic because local politicians should not do foreign policy, and if they try they likely will show themselves as incompetent fools.
1. involved in proposing changing a street name
2. spent by the mayor directly on the activities you mention
I hate to switch the subject but yes, it's a distraction from the fact that the mayor elections have very big holes and there's almost proof of corruption and fraud during the counting of votes (after which she became mayor). To stay on topic: I doubt Minsk really cares about this.Lukashenko is neither pro-west nor pro-russia really, but that doesn't mean he doesn't want to stay in power by all means necessary.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boris_Nemtsov
By the way there is at least one statue of Lithuanian liberty fighting "terrorist" in Chicago.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolfas_Ramanauskas
Protasevich Street? Bucharest mulls changing address of Belarusian embassy
It's pointless when it is not backed by real sanctions. It does nothing to punish brazen actions of autocrats while giving them fuel for propaganda.
> Punishing autocrats on their ego instead of their people sounds like a much better approach.
How about real sanctions on autocrats, their cronies, families and businesses? Sanction oligarchs, sanction businesses that are main source of income for autocrats etc. If you want to help ordinary people - simplify immigration.
> Given that economic sanctions usually fail to overthrow the regimes they are intended to punish
Maybe not, but they cripple country development and leave autocrats with less resources for a future actions.
Sure, but these have a limited reach and they are usually being done very early in the sanction process. But once the targets have no more estate in the Western world, there is not much you can do.
> Maybe not, but they cripple country development and leave autocrats with less resources for a future actions.
But that's a really limited success at the cost of hundreds of lives, which makes it morally very difficult to justify.
Western news media outlets, by contrast, seem to be lionizing the journalist's role in the Belarus protests, but at some point I imagine they will have address the above two points. Silence is too awkward.
It is interesting to diff the propaganda from both sides here, especially since domestic propaganda value appears to have been a key component of why Lukashenko chose to do this.
This is objectively false, since there are way more refugees chosing to go to Russia and its allies (Snowden and who else?) than the other way round (thousands every year).
Nitpick: Snowden chose to live in South America actually (Bolivia or Equador) he was just in transit in Moscow but he was just never given the right to onboard the plane again after the US canceled his passport.
But don't think for a second that the US won't force a diplomat's plane to land even outside their jurisdiction just because they believe an enemy of the state is on it. It's all about interests.
They already did that. It's funny that this is considered ok.
EU countries like Spain and Italy denied access to their airspace to a diplomatic flight in what was essentially equally immoral stunt as the one Belarus pulled. Only with the added "bonus" of showing that being a diplomat means nothing. Now the same countries have to walk the fine line of accusing the enemy while not incriminating the frenemy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evo_Morales_grounding_incident
[0] https://www.tagesschau.de/ausland/europa/luftfahrtrecht-zwan... (in german)
I'm positive that the West will make use of that loophole at the first opportunity.
He seems to be arguing that this clause was broken in spirit or something. I can't quite make out the finer details though, but it's not exactly a slam dunk violation - the treaty does say they may require the aircraft to make a landing and they did.
If this were an American plane, I would fully consider it an act of war and make a lot of noise to that extent. If it were an American citizen, it would be worth—even if solely to draw a line—a tactical incursion to attempt exfiltration. But it’s not. We don’t have Nordstream or Orban or all the other capitulations Brussels (and Berlin) have made that create a geopolitical vulnerability with an actor willing to exploit them. The situation is thus properly complicated.
The only mitigating factor to Minks’s credit is Protasevich having never secured EU citizenship.
I think people who are fully one one side of this are fully convinced by one of those. I don't think it's swaying people on the fence, however.
The individual does matter. It doesn't look great to start naming streets after arrested neo-nazis. If that story has legs (unclear if it does) this will really not endear Belarussians to the West and will play directly into Putin's narrative, which is that we enthusiastically support neonazis who fight Russia.
They're deflecting because Lukashenko's official narrative (the bomb story) is too absurd even for them to peddle. They can't really say that the plane wasn't hijacked so instead they're falling back to "well he had it coming". This is definitely a new low for the Russia-Western relations, they normally bother with at least some plausible deniability.
FYI Belarus is a country rather than a region in Russia.
I don't think that part will change any minds.
"The Ryanair flight from Greece to Lithuania was compelled to land in Minsk on Sunday while traveling through Belarusian airspace, on the basis of what appears to be a fraudulent claim that a bomb might be on board."
Is what they wrote this morning.
Are you surprised? This is the usual behavior of the Western "free" and "independent" media. Double standards in action.
I did not analyze everything but they mentioned the reactions of western countries, the fact that Protasevich was arrested etc.
When extensively travelling in the ME 12 years ago, I often watched Al-Jazeera (in English) and I di not find anything outrageous either.
So either I did not read closely, or there is some subliminal text that I did not notice, or I was not interested enough to be the right target (just for the record, I think that the Belorussian govt is completely fucked up and we (France) should do whatever we can to kick them in the ass, more than just closing the airspace (and yes, I do not know what)).
This is not just another case of an editorialized title on HN.
It‘s much worse.
The EU has been accused precisely that it won't actually do anything against the arrest of Protasevich, besides posting angry tweets for a few days.
The title of the article suggest it has actually done „something“.
But in reality it‘s exactly what we all fear, just „some guy“ trolling around on Facebook, giving the impression that something was done!
Well that "guy" is the mayor of one of the capital's districts, and she used to be a member of the european parliament.
No idea if anything will come from this proposal, but it's not some guy trolling on Facebook.
There are already _a lot_ of economic sanctions aimed at Belarus and each time new ones are imposed, it'll be successively harder to do more the next time. There's only so much that can be done -- The EU has already pretty much delivered Belarus into the hands of Russia and the EU isn't going to try direct intervention. Nobody wants a confrontation with Russia or a repeat of the Ukraine situation.
This is in direct opposition to the EU's strategic goals - it wants Belarussians have a favorable view of the EU and an unfavorable view of Russia. They've actually been doing fairly well at that so far.
On the other hand, if they do nothing they look weak.
RT and domestic Belarussian propaganda outlets are all geared up to tell Belarussians that they won't be able to get their medicine because the EU doesn't like that we used the same unconventional methods they used to get Snowden to arrest a domestic neo nazi insurgent (that being the line they're going with now) oh and by the way "they named a street after their hero".
I don't think there are many good options here. Indeed, doing nothing, galling as it might be, might be the lesser evil.
While this might not accomplish much in real terms, I do find it hilarious.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_street_names_changed_a...
I just heard an interview with a journalist, Jolyon Naegele, a Western correspondent in Czechoslovakia in the 80s (who worked for Radio Free Europe). He talked about how Czechoslovak secret services bothered him (often in a very crude, stupid ways) and also how they, in some sense, were afraid of him, since they assumed that he is a foreign agent. The assumption came from the fact that all the Czechoslovak foreign correspondents in the West actually _were_ agents of secret services.
My point is, you cannot generalize the systemic features of Western liberal democracies to authoritarian countries.
So I would be surprised if this is not true for diplomats as well. Most of them, if not all, are probably operatives of Belarusian secret services, and they probably have mostly conservative-authoritarian values.
At best, they are a distraction. At worst, they reinforce the more juvenile members of each nation's diplomatic core that encourage non-constructive tit-for-tat "optics" politics.
I do imagine that the USPS will deliver to the 1600 block of either Crittenden St. or Rev. Jerry Moore Plaza, or to 800 block of either 16th St. NW or Black Lives Matter Plaza.
At the very beginning of HN guidelines we read:
"Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. [...] If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic."
It sounds pretty much like a story that could make it to TV news, and the phenomenon itself is hardly new (a number of precedents has already been pointed out in other comments).
Because people complaining about this is tedious and a regular feature, and it only causes noise. If you don't like an article, move on. If you think it's off topic and shouldn't be there at all, flag.
For my part, I find it interesting not because of this specific incident, but because of the comments it has sparked showing how naming places is regularly being used as a low-key passive-aggressive protest by local governments.
To me that's an interesting hack around the otherwise limited powers of local government.
You just explained why you think this should be on HN, something that wouldn't have happened without the question.
Doubt it. I have to imagine "Ambasada Belarusului, București 011411" is going to be pretty deliverable.
This was a Polish plane flying from one EU country to another EU country with EU citizens on-board that was clearly hijacked. Mig-29 was sent to make sure this will happen.
What EU did? Blocked Belorussian planes for one day (looking on Flight Radar, blockade is gone now)? Changing street name? What else, twits, likes and crayons?
This is exactly what Putin wants - he wants to show that EU, NATO are not able to protect their interest in Central Europe, more, that they don't even care about this. Russia do this using force - Crimea invasion and catching Protasevich or using economy and influence - German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder was bribed by Russians to start building Nord Stream, then Nord Stream 2 followed.
Just out of curiosity, I checked now (2021-05-27 10:38 UTC) and not one flight over Belarus is an EU airline:
* Aeroflot, MOSCOW to BELGRADE
* Unmarked plane T7-HHH under San Marino registration
* Belavia, Minsk to Belgrade
* Fedex, Hongkong to Liege
* Belavia, Istanbul to Minsk
* Adzerbaijan Airlines, Baku to Moscow (what is this doing over Belarus, the flight path seems very strange - AHY6735)
* Air China, Frankfurt to Beijing
What do you expect EU to do about airlines it doesn't control ?
That leaves Hungary, Cyprus and Estonia. There are news articles for all three saying bans are supported or in progress — different countries have different legal processes for doing this, and it can take a few more days.
[1] https://en.belavia.by/news/ or https://en.belavia.by/table/
https://uk.flightaware.com/live/flight/AHY6735 Looks like this one was just Baku to Minsk though, no controversy. Their Baku-Moscow route is AHY181
I find it contunously hilarious. Always gives me a chuckle.
They are actually counter-productive, in my opinion by distracting attention away from meaningful action.
We don't live in a turn based strategy and the mayor did not spend her action. She doesn't have to wait for the next turn to do something else.
So unless there are indications that other decisions were delayed or scrapped because they want to change the street name, this is irrelevant.
Real world doesn't work like that. If you are familiar with Bucharest municipal politics, by all means criticise that they are not doing a good enough job, or that they handled some things wrong.
But without context it's nonsensical to attack someone the way you do.
Perhaps the mayor is doing 10x better job than her predecessor and she proposed this name change in addition to that.
Technically, the argument is that they are doing less work than their hypothetical counterpart who is identical in all respects, but did not spend time on making the name change proposal.
Clearly this is almost nonfalsifiable, so a difficult argument to take seriously.
The grandparent comment didn't challenge it, but asked rhetorically what [else] a mayor could do.
This response implies that something had to be done (by the mayor) by definition, whether useful or not. And that's what's fallacious to me.
Municipal entities aren't really actors in international politics, and when they try playing such a role, the results tend to be dubious. That's my opinion at least.
As for your comment - that "people can make more than one decision in a year" - it, in turn, feels like a strawman argument to me, because noone said that they can't. There is still some limit, though (obviously larger than 1, but nevertheless finite), and renaming a street always comes at a substantial cost - both for the city and private entities. Cost associated with the need for changing street name signs, changing documents etc. Maybe that cost is worth paying, but an ad absurdum line of argument isn't something that could convince me of it.
This is demonstrably false. The change sends a message, which is certain to be heard. It also signals a position to the local population. You can argue it is not much, but it is not nothing. I would say the effect seems proportional to the amount of time needed to take such a decision.
The actual context was that the mayor should do something useful instead of doing this, which is fallacious as she can do both.
> This response implies that something had to be done (by the mayor) by definition, whether useful or not. And that's what's fallacious to me.
Well yes, it would be fallacious. That's why I did not make that point, and instead referred only to this specific decision. Note that I did not even say that it was a good decision, just that the premise that doing it somehow prevented them from doing something else was flawed.
> Municipal entities aren't really actors in international politics, and when they try playing such a role, the results tend to be dubious. That's my opinion at least.
Municipal entities do not exist in a vacuum. They are shaped by and react to national and international politics. Particularly capitals with embassies and stuff. In a context of increased nationalism and cultural tensions, these things are bound to happen, even though as you say it's not necessarily effective or useful. Changing street names for some political reason really isn't new or remarkable.
> As for your comment - that "people can make more than one decision in a year" - it, in turn, feels like a strawman argument to me, because noone said that they can't.
You should read the thread. Plenty of people are saying just that, and your comment implied it heavily in the context of the discussion.
You seem to want to minimise the consequences and emphasise the costs of the decision. In reality, it does not do much, and does not cost much either.
https://www.unz.com/akarlin/protasevich-served-in-azov/
While azov is definitely is not a great bunch, in 2014 it was one of the only groups, alongside with donbas battalion that was accepting volunteers and this was the main attraction. A lot of belarusians and ukranians got there, fought and left and they realized what azov is really about.
Tut.by's article: https://telegra.ph/Voeval-li-Protasevich-v-Ukraine-05-27
Most of my family got affected by the regime at some point before leaving the country, witnessed massacre in 2011, gov-t staged terrorist acts. And knowing how Belarus needs people like Protasevich, Putilo, Zavadski, Byabenin, Cherkasova i am willfully dismissing his misdoings in favour of his later achievements.
I know that people love to let their entire opinion be based on a single article, but let the bigger picture in.
Would be nice to read his articles if there are any. He's a journalist after all. Right?
Worked for euroradio
https://euroradio.fm/en/anarchists-describe-their-arrests-i-...
https://euroradio.fm/en/young-man-imprisoned-drug-related-cr...
https://euroradio.fm/en/girl-you-better-go-do-some-work-and-...
https://euroradio.fm/en/lithuania-prepares-potential-belnpp-...
Moved to poland fearing arrest. Joined Nexta. Biggest belarusian tg channel.
https://t.me/s/nexta_live
Enjoy, most of the stuff before september 28th.
edit: Anarchists in Belarus are actively persecuted by kgb over the last 20 years. They are seen as enemies of the state and are constantly watched. Police brutality, election fraud, are themes that are very taboo in state media, and journalists that write about these things are often arrested because of treir work.
[0] https://www.svaboda.org/a/27255566.html
Combat medics, for example, that are by Geneva convention are non-combatants are still trained to use rifles and carry at least a pistol, in most militaries, for personal protection during active service.
The issue with this is, in the court of public opinion, once it's proven that your "alibi" doesn't hold water, you aren't allowed to come with an alternative "alibi", but rather perceived as a liar; otherwise you would tell the truth from the beginning.
West. Basic training. https://www.todaysmilitary.com/careers-benefits/careers/publ...
East. The "Тактика" и "Военная подготовка" part. This is an example of russian uni that trains military journalists specifically, still during my time in my military dept (not military uni, just a dept) in uni "Военная подготовка" went above and beyond shooting on a range and ruck marches. https://voronezh.postupi.online/vuz/vgu/programma/10008/
European countries mostly pick fresh recruits after basic, and do additional training, then they assigned a role.
Some of it is just straight up bribery. Selfishness is taking over basic patriotism. Not the toxic kind, I mean, basic, like knowing which team you are on, at least.
And the more minor part of it is, of course, the terminal condition of not wanting to "disturb the peace". Fine, then, they will do it FOR you, and they will control the situation.
As for Evo Moralez incident, the head of the State and its stuff has diplomatic immunity. Even if the plane is packed with snowdens and assanges you can NOT touch it.
Make no mistake - I do hope that Protasevich gets released, and I have no sympathy for the regime whatsoever... but there's absolutely no telling what his further life trajectory would be like, and the street name would be there to stay. (It's obviously not guaranteed "forever"; but that's usually the intention, the principle. Street names are not meant for temporary tributes or announcements)